(Reuters) - Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il toured the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Wednesday in a rare trip abroad ahead of talks with government leaders expected to focus on reviving the North's feeble economy.
China, the North's biggest benefactor, is seen as the only major state that can influence the mercurial North and will be pushing Kim to end military grandstanding that has shaken the region and return to dormant nuclear disarmament talks.
Kim, 68, with thinning hair, a slight limp and gaunt after a suspected stroke in 2008, has been flanked by tight security after his armored train crossed into China on Monday and headed to the gleaming coastal city of Dalian.
Kim's last visit to China in 2006 brought effusive promises of economic cooperation between the two neighbors, as well as broad vows from the North Korean leader to seek progress toward "denuclearisation." There have been few signs of either.
China's leaders have for decades advised Kim and his father, state founder Kim Il-sung, to draw lessons from their economic plans that have turned the country into a global power so that the North can break free of being a regional basket case.
Kim has been seeking increased investment, especially from China, after his broken economy was dealt new blows by U.N. sanctions for a nuclear test a year ago, a bungled currency move that sparked rare civil unrest and a loss of aid from Seoul once worth about 5 percent of its GDP.
Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang has confirmed Kim's latest trip abroad. Police attempted to prevent reporters from filming it.
Kim's itinerary so far suggests China is trying to nudge him toward opening the North's economy for greater trade and investment, analysts said.
He has visited Dalian, a model for China's industrial renewal, and Tianjin which is a showcase of Chinese incentives for port, banking and technology investment.
But economic reforms could undermine Kim's "military first" ideology, justifying hardships at home to build a military strong enough to prevent an invasion.
TENSIONS
Kim's trip to China comes at a time of renewed tensions on the Korean peninsula triggered by an attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 of its sailors. South Korean government officials believe Pyongyang targeted the ship with a torpedo in disputed waters in March.
The North has moved up as many as 50,000 of its special forces closer to the border with the South, Yonhap news quoted senior South Korean government officials as saying.
The officials did not say when the deployment was made. North Korea positions most of its 1.2-million-man military near the Demilitarized Zone buffer that has divided the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a cease fire.
A South Korean newspaper said Kim should be facing rebuke in Beijing for stoking regional tensions instead of getting a red carpet welcome.
"Aid would end up neutralizing the effects of U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang following its second nuclear test last year and make a joke out of punitive measures the international community could take if the North is responsible for the sinking," the South's biggest daily Chosun Ilbo said in an editorial.
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